Durban - Three men, including a Durban metro policeman, were granted R10 000 bail each in the Durban Magistrate’s Court on Friday, for an alleged murder committed six years ago.
They will appear in court again next month. The men were arrested when one of their alleged accomplices confessed and implicated them.
The metro policeman was already on bail on drug dealing charges. One of the others is allegedly a gang boss.
The provincial Hawks Wentworth drug and gang investigation unit arrested metro policeman, Constable Craig Crowie, 33, alleged gang boss, David Singh, 40, and alleged gang member, Darren Ward, 33, in the early hours of Wednesday at their homes in Clairwood, the Bluff and Wentworth.
They were arrested for the 2009 fatal shooting of Shiraz Razak in the Bluff area. They face charges of murder and conspiracy to commit murder.
This is Crowie’s third arrest in the past few months. He was arrested in August and again last month on drug dealing charges and was released on bail.
In August, the police apparently found Crowie cutting up about R100 000 worth of cocaine at his grandmother’s flat in Wentworth.
It is alleged he was weighing the drug and packing it into small plastic packets ready for resale in Clairwood, Wentworth and Newlands East.
Last month, he was again arrested at his grandmother’s flat after he was caught allegedly selling drugs to Hawks undercover agents.
The Daily News reported Thursday on Bluff prosecutor Gail Greyling’s arrest, also during the early hours of Wednesday morning. She appeared in court later that day on a drug possession charge.
The Hawks had her Bluff flat address because it is believed she is in a romantic relationship with one of the three murder accused.
The Hawks had raided her flat in search of one of the three men when they apparently found her in possession of 1g of cocaine.
Last month, the Daily Newshad reported about Wentworth resident Ronaldo Sewell and how his guilty conscience had eventually led to him confessing to Constable Riyadh Adams, a member of the drug and gang unit, about his role in killing Razak and he implicated the three. Adams had reopened the investigation into Razak’s death.
Sewell, 27, reached a plea agreement with the State.
Last month, he pleaded guilty to murder and is serving a five-year prison sentence.
According to his written plea, he had acted in common purpose with Ward, Singh and Crowie to kill Razak.
He claimed they were all members of a gang, the Drain Rats, led by Singh at the time.
He also said they all sold drugs for Singh.
He said Singh gave them the instruction to kill Razak because Razak owed Singh “a large sum of money” he had obtained from the sale of drugs.
Sewell also told the court he was prepared to testify for the State should the three men be arrested and charged with Razak’s murder.
He said Singh told them Razak visited his girlfriend every weekend on the Bluff and Singh gave Ward and him firearms after all three apparently agreed to kill Razak.
The three of them went to the girlfriend’s house where they shot Razak.
The plea read that Sewell had handed himself over to the police who, at that time, had no evidence implicating him.
Daily News